Table of Contents

Build an Inventory Manager App

Lesley Updated by Lesley

​This article walks you through building an Inventory Manager app, allowing you to track current inventory levels for your products. Current inventory is updated by tracking incoming shipments and outgoing orders​.​

​The main feature is using Parent-Child Connections and Formulas to aggregate total inventory received from incoming shipments and compare it against total inventory fulfilled via orders.

You can see the example app here.

Define the Tables

​You will be adding several tables to store different kinds of records. Think of each table as its own spreadsheet.

Products

​Add a Products table. This stores the details about each individual product being tracked.

​Add a Number field called “Starting Inventory” that will be used to track how much inventory each product starts with. By default, our product will always start with 0 quantities:

Purchases

​Add a Purchases table. This stores the details about each product purchase made towards your products.

Replace the first field for an Auto Increment field instead, giving you a unique identifier for each purchase in the database:

Add a Connection Field:

  • Product - Connects to Products

From the Connections panel on the right, click green "+” button and select the “Products” table and add it as a one-to-many connection:

​Add a Number Field called “Quantity” that will be used to track how much stock will deplete from the total inventory:

Orders

Add an Orders table. This stores all the details about each outgoing Order​, such as the product needed and total quantity ordered.​

​This table requires the exact same fields as the Purchases table, so we can copy that into a new table and name it "Orders".

You can read more on how to copy a table's fields here.

Define the Formulas

​The Products​ table is going to need some Sum Formulas to total the quantity of Inventory Received and Inventory Sent.

Inventory Received

Add a Sum field that will track total Quantities from the Purchases connection:

Inventory Shipped

​Add a Sum field that will track total Quantities from the Orders connection:

Inventory On Hand

​Add an Equation field that adds Starting Inventory to Inventory Received and subtracts the Inventory Sent:

Build the Live App

​Now that the data is defined, it's time to build the pages for the live app, so others can use the app as well.

Current Inventory

​This page manages the Product records.​

​From Pages, add a new page and select the Products table. When it comes down to selecting the view types​, you can select multiple views at once.​

​Select the Menu view with a form attached to add a new Product record.​

​Select the Grid view to display all Products​. Include the Details view for the grid and any desired child views (such as a grid of all Purchases made for the selected Product):

Incoming Purchases

​This page manages Purchase records. When you need to increase inventory for a specific Product, a new Purchase record must be created.​

​Add a new page and select the Purchases table.​

​Just like the Current Inventory page, select the Menu view with the form and the grid view along with a details view of the selected purchase:

Outgoing Orders

​This page manages Orders records. When you need to send a specific Product out, a new Order record must be created.​

​Add a new page and select the Orders table.​

​Nothing different here, select the Menu view with the form along with the grid view of records:

Extend the App

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